Just in time for spring break and summer vacations, Las Cruces receives a top ranking as one of this year’s best travel destinations in the United States. Here is a statement from the city of Las Cruces:
MONEY ranks the City of the Crosses third in the nation as a place to visit in 2019. MONEY specifically cites as attractions the City’s Museum of Nature & Science and the Branigan Cultural Center. “Populated by single-story adobe-style buildings and mission-inspired architecture, Las Cruces’ city center is home to a biweekly market with local food, crafts, and music,” states MONEY. They also named Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces as the best place to stay while visiting Las Cruces.
“This ranking is beyond amazing,” said Mayor Ken Miyagishima. “To have such a prestigious company rank Las Cruces third nationally is a credit to every person in our community who is so accommodating and who makes guests feel so welcome.”
“Our community’s overall efforts to market Las Cruces as a travel destination are paying off,” said City Manager Stuart C. Ed. “City government, our partners in the hospitality industry, Visit Las Cruces, the City’s Economic Development Department and others are successfully working together to put Las Cruces on the national and world map. We continue to attract the attention of the travel community and we whole-heartedly welcome guests to our beautiful city.”
MONEY says it analyzed 43,706 data points for almost 750 of the most popular vacation spots: roughly 300 in the U.S. and 450 around the world.
According to the report:
To rank each place, we gave the most weight to overall cost—including average roundtrip flight prices and hotel prices provided by Kayak and vacation rental costs from AirDNA. We also calculated what travelers should expect to spend on meals, beverages, and local transport, with pricing from Numbeo. For U.S. destinations, with the help of Hipmunk and Witlytic, we factored in rental car prices from the nearest airport.
To ensure that our picks are a good value right now, we also considered year-over-year price changes in average airfares and hotel prices. For international destinations, we used XE.comto analyze exchange rate fluctuations over the past year.
Things to do also factored into scoring. We looked at the number of museums, parks, campgrounds, orchestras, historic landmarks and attractions, beaches, restaurants, bars, hotels, and more. We used TripAdvisor for international destinations, and data provided byWitlytic on the number and average rating of things to do in domestic destinations. We also considered the number of highly rated restaurants, amusement parks, bars, campsites, museums, parks, zoos, beaches, and other points of interest in an area, provided by Yelp.
Read the full MONEY report at: